Installing iChain 2.2 in VMware Virtual Machine

The Problem

Since its beta release many people were struggling trying to install and run iChain 2.2 in a VMware virtual environment. Even though previous versions of iChain ran well in VMware, it was said numerous times that due to the change in the core OS component iChain 2.2 does not run in VMware and nobody seemed to know the exact reason until now.

iChain 2.2 fails to install in VMware due to incompatibility of the CDROM driver provided by the core OS with the virtual CDROM device, configured by default as the Master device of the second IDE channel (1:0) of VMware virtual machine. Therefore, after the first phase of iChain installation process (DOS partitioning) the core OS CDROM driver will fail to recognize the CDROM device and the entire iChain 2.2 installation process will fail.

The Solution

To install iChain 2.2 in VMware first create a virtual machine. While in VMware, click on New Virtual Machine, select Custom and then click next.

Select Netware 6 as the type of the virtual machine, then follow the rest of the configuration steps until the virtual machine is created.

Open the newly created virtual machine with VMware and go to Virtual Machine Settings.

Remove all devices that are not used by iChain, but can create hardware conflicts during iChain configuration. These devices are usually USB Controller ans Sound Adapter.

Next highlight DVD/CD-ROM device and make sure that the default Virtual Device Node configuration of the DVD/CD-ROM is set to IDE 0:1. If it is different, change it to 0:1.

Start virtual machine and press F2 to go to the BIOS configuration.

Select VMware Boot menu and change the sequence as follows:

Removable Devices

CD-ROM Drive

Hard Drive

Save changes and exit BIOS configuration.

Start iChain Installation.

After Partitioning phase the iChain installation process will reboot automatically.

When prompted with the following question: Do you want to select custom disk, platform support or network drivers [Y,N]? type Y and press <Enter> to continue.

Next you will be prompted with device driver configuration menu. Make sure for Storage Adapters IDEATA is selected, then press <Enter> to continue.